Monday, February 25, 2008

Soma B-Side Tested By Cycle Sports (Japan)

Our B-Side prototype was put through the paces by Cycle Sports, a big cycling magazine in Japan. (Well, all magazines in Japan seem bigger than their American counterparts, don't they?) Our Japananese distributor was so intrigued by it at Interbike, they wanted to borrow it for their show in Japan. Then Cycle Sports saw it at their show...Long story short, we only got it back a few weeks ago.

Though the test editors agreed on most of the advantages the 650b MTB platform hopes to offer, the feature they most appreciated was that the bar height was back at a reasonable level. They really don't like the jacked-up bars most 29er's have.

We are now riding the prototype here in the States and hope to move to production soon. Geometry is mostly dialed in, but we are not sure should we go with nice Tange heat treated CrMo tubeset like our other frames or go with something more affordable to entice those that are not sold and just wanna try this thing out...like a plain ol double butted CrMo or a Reynolds 631? What yall think?

If you have access to Japanese magazines where you are the review is featured in 2008 Issue 2.